The Conservative government is examining a whole new business model to effectively buy, sell and use the time and skills of federal employees: Meet the BURO-crat.

The government has been planning a pilot project at some federal agencies that would apply “market principles” to more efficiently use federal bureaucrats and help smooth out busy and slow work periods, according to government records.

The three-year pilot project is based on a model called “The Buro,” which the government explains is “like the Euro for bureaucrats,” according to a presentation deck prepared for the federal government’s deputy ministers’ committee on policy innovation. (The Euro is the currency used by many European Union countries.)

The Buro concept, which would face its first test at the government’s regional economic agencies, would “establish an electronic market and currency (the Buro) to allow bureaucrats to ‘sell’ their time to each other in a pinch,” say the documents, obtained by the Ottawa Citizen using the access to information law.

The government hopes to address a problem in the bureaucracy of “stretched and stressed resources” during busy periods, and “sub-optimal resource use” during slow times.

Under the model, federal directors general would get an allotment of Buros each year, with an electronic marketplace website established in which Buro-crats “can be traded.”

Busy work groups within the federal government could post micro-contracts on a website, according to the presentation, which is titled “The Buro: Using Market Principles for Efficient Human Resource Allocation.”

Employees working in other areas or departments who have some extra time could accept the additional work, and their section could earn some Buros back from that group.

Some of the advantages of the Buro, according to the presentation, are that it’s more flexible than current human resources tools, because secondments, co-ops, new hires and casual employees “are impractical for short-term needs.”

Also, because the Buros use market forces and have value, “people respond to incentives,” say the documents, which were prepared between August, 2013 and February, 2014.

The documents say that, depending on rollout, there would be “variable costs” for the government, including incentives, oversight and maintenance.

But there would also be significant overtime savings, as well as “fewer stressed-out employees,” better work and more deadlines met. Buros would also mitigate the effects of temporary employee absences, according to the presentation. The government would then reinvest the savings, the documents say.

The Conservative government has been planning the pilot project as it cuts billions of dollars and thousands of federal employees in an effort to balance the books by 2015-16.

The Buro market would largely be self-policing, with ratings for all parties in transactions, ‘like eBay,’ and dispute resolution ‘as last resort’

The government’s three-year pilot project is proposed first for policy analysts at regional development agencies, such as the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, Western Economic Diversification Canada and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

The skills, knowledge and economic analysis required at the various regional agencies are all similar, says the government.

The pilot project, as envisioned, would see a working group spend six months on research, consultations and business-case development.

If the initial work confirms that the pilot project is feasible, the government would then take one year to design the system for the pilot (including develop software, rules of use), followed by a one-year trial run, then a post-mortem to measure its effectiveness.

The pilot project would then inform the government on “potential wider deployment.”

The system could potentially be modelled after blueprints such as eBay, InnoCentive (a company that crowdsources innovative solutions) and Google Answers (a former online knowledge market), the documents say.

The Buro market, while requiring rules, would largely be self-policing, with ratings for all parties in transactions, “like eBay,” and dispute resolution “as last resort.”

Buro transactions would be transparent under the planned model, to allow monitoring for misuse via a “panopticon effect: visibility keeps people honest.”

The deputy ministers’ committee on policy innovation that is examining the changes was created in November 2012. It was initially mandated to consider links between social media and policy-making, including new models for policy development and public engagement.

As of December 2013, the committee was asked to move beyond social media to examine trends and new technologies to help improve policy development.

In recognition of their many sacrifices and service to our country, in 2005, the federal government of then-prime minister Paul Martin passed legislation that gave military and RCMP veterans who had been forced to leave uniformed service due to injury or illness an expedited route into a stable government job. Police and military veterans were not guaranteed jobs, but were given special status that often put them at the front of the line. Medically disadvantaged veterans had to be fit to work before applying for the program, and could of course only be put into jobs they were qualified for. But it was still a worthwhile way to make sure that illness or injury would not leave those who have served our country in uniform unable to support themselves and their families.

The system worked well for years, and hundreds of former soldiers and Mounties found jobs in the federal civil service. But this well-meant effort is now being derailed by job cutbacks in the federal government. As recently reported by the Ottawa Citizen, cutbacks among federal ministries are resulting in a flooded market of prioritized individuals fighting for scarce job postings. Because surplus bureaucrats are given higher standing for available jobs than qualified veterans.

As part of its efforts to rein in federal spending, the government has ordered cutbacks across the federal government that could ultimately see nearly 20,000 federal employees lose their jobs. Under current agreements, a federal employee who has been laid off, had their position declared surplus or is returning from a leave of absence has first crack at any available position (they may also opt to receive educational assistance for retraining or a buyout package).

During the recent salad days of the federal public service, which grew almost 40% between 2000 and 2010, there were enough jobs for everyone. Now that the public service is contracting, that’s no longer the case. And that means that military and police veterans now rank behind bureaucrats in terms of placement priority.

It must be said that the overriding consideration for any job, especially one paid for by the taxpayers, must be competence and ability to meet the requirements of the position. No position should be filled by anyone who is not qualified to hold it, especially in ham-fisted efforts to advance social justice and other such nonsense. But when two candidates are equally qualified for a government position, there’s no reason why someone who chose to serve their country in uniform but is no longer able to serve should rank behind a civil servant in the pecking order. At the very least, they’re equally deserving.

Liberal Senator Percy Downe agrees. He has proposed that hiring regulations be amended to give former military and RCMP members equal standing with unemployed civil servants, and that the government extend the amount of time a veteran can be on the priority placement list beyond the current two-year timeframe.

Exactly right. Not every veteran will be right for every position in our leaner federal public service. But those who are qualified should have every opportunity to continue serving their country in the best capacity that their health permits.

Ottawa is in the middle of sending out a flood of cheques to bureaucrats across the land — tens of thousands of dollars apiece — for no reason except that for years they turned up and did their jobs (while complaining mightily about how badly they’re treated, no doubt.)

The money isn’t a bonus or a reward. It’s straight cash, a free cheque on top of their usual salary and all the other perks and benefits they get that you and I don’t. It has been reported several times in the media, but for some reason doesn’t seem to have registered with the Canadian public. Perhaps because it is so out of whack with what most Canadians would consider normal good sense that they can’t quite bring themselves to believe it. “Wait a minute – we’re paying taxes so the government can shower public employees with a few billion dollars in money they did nothing special to earn?” Even for Ottawa it’s beyond the bizarre. People just can’t grasp that it’s happening.

But it is. The federal government is sending out payments of anything from $20,000 to $150,000 apiece to its employees. These are the same workers who have been turning up at the office wearing “Harper hates me” buttons, calling in sick at double the national rate and pouring in disability claims based on mental illness, due to the perceived stress of their jobs. Some stress: Oh my God they’ve sent me another cheque! This one’s for $10,000! How am I supposed to cope with this?

So much money is pouring into bureaucrat bank accounts that no one seems sure what the end total will be. The CBC reports it could be as much as $6 billion in all. Treasury Board President Tony Clement has been sending it out in dribs and drabs of a billion or so a year, and insists it’s a good deal in the long run, because it will save him from sending out even bigger payoffs in the future. “The savings for Canadian taxpayers are significant,” he told the network. (Clement, remember, is the guy who thought $50 million was entirely reasonable for some new bike paths and gazebos in his Muskoka riding as part of the G20 extravaganza, and snuck it in as a reduction in “border congestion”)

One reason Canadians have been slow to catch on to what’s been happening may be the arcane reasoning for the windfall. Since time immemorial, federal civil servants have had the right to “severance”, even when retiring or quitting their jobs. Usually severance is paid to someone who has been forcibly separated from their position, as in getting fired or laid off. Not in Ottawa. In government-land, they get to keep their jobs, their salaries and all their perks, and get the severance too. Taxpayers are forking out extra cash just because someone showed up for work regularly, until they found a better job or decided to retire and coast along on their generous pension.

For decades, governments just paid the money and kept quiet about it. The Harper government, to its credit, recognized the absurdity of the situation and is putting an end to it. But rather than just tell its employees to forget it, which would undoubtedly run into some legal issues, it is buying them off one fat windfall cheque after another. To make up for the loss of the perk, it is giving employees one week’s pay for every year of service. Clement is right: by paying them now it will avoid paying them even more later, and will eventually save Ottawa from paying anything at all. But the smell of the thing won’t go away.

“Union leaders looked across the negotiating table at a bunch of spineless putzes who sold out the taxpayers who depend on them,” steamed Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Gregory Thomas.

…”We are spending billions of dollars to give severance to people who are not losing their jobs. It makes no sense whatsoever — I am sure the lake-house market in Ottawa must be booming right now — it’s outrageous,” said Dan Kelly, spokesman of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. “If you work for the civil service for 30 years, not only do you retire to one of the best pensions available, but you get a cheque for $50 grand to cushion the blow en route to your dream retirement.”

Dan Kelly, head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, told the CBC:

“To spend billions of dollars in severance package for people that are not losing their jobs, people that have the best form of job security in the country, that have gold-plated pensions to leave to, just seems nuts.

“This should be taken away from civil servants.… But to trade it off for higher wage increments, I think will not pass the smell test for average Canadians.”

Union leaders think it’s all fine, naturally. The money has always been paid, so that means it always should be paid. The fact that it comes in the midst of a nationwide effort to portray the civil service as an entity under siege from heartless Conservative penny-pinchers doesn’t strike them as even mildly contradictory. In fact, according to the CBC, the union bosses managed to wheedle an extra 0.75% pay increase out of the government, as an extra added incentive to convince the poor mandarins to accept the billion-dollar buyout. Which would, of course, negate much of the savings expected from the program.

“Only in Ottawa”, you say? Unfortunately not. These people are all over the country. The government employs 280,000 people. Every single one of them underpaid and underappreciated. But a lot richer than they used to be.

After making a passing remark recently about the fact teachers work a ten-month year, I got a small flood of emails from displeased educators. The theme was the same: we work hard. People don’t appreciate all the extra duties we perform. Teaching is a tough job.

I happen to know this to be true. Most Canadians haven’t the faintest clue how much more is demanded of teachers beyond mere classroom time. Entire ranks of supervisors, politicians and bureaucrats exist solely to dream up more duties to demand of them (since parents are evidently no longer capable of raising children).

Nonetheless, they’re fighting a losing battle. Working for the public is probably less fun than it’s ever been. After a year of resistance, B.C. teachers reluctantly accepted a contract this week that gave them next to none of their demands. The union argued it didn’t have a choice, since the province was likely to impose the contract anyway.

Ontario teachers are in the same boat, as are doctors. One wing of the Ontario medical industry has begun running radio ads accusing the province of planning to impose “U.S.-style health care” on an unsuspecting population, which seems a bit suspect considering this week’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare – which Republicans denounce as Canadian-style socialism.

The Ottawa Citizen reports that almost 50% of disability claims by public servants last year were for mental illness. That follows an earlier report indicating federal employees take double the number of sick days as those in the private sector, and that on any given day 19,000 bureaucrats are off the job on some kind of medical leave. Working for the government, it seems, not only makes you sick but drives you crazy.

The tendency is to blame the nasty Tories. Some Canada Revenue Agency workers who wore “Harper Hates Me” buttons to work, and were told to remove them, are reportedly filing a grievance through the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The union sees nothing wrong with the buttons.

“We think it pretty well summed it up – Stephen Harper hates public servants and there were buttons created,” Robert Campbell, president of the Union of Taxation Employees, told the CBC. A few days ago there was a similar complaint after Parks Canada employees received a letter suggesting they keep their political opinions to themselves while on the job (the government says it had nothing to do with the letter).

So, according to employees on the federal and provincial payrolls, they are under siege, underappreciated, plagued by a government that despises them and a public that doesn’t care. The pressure is so bad it’s making them physically and mentally ill.

It’s a good story, but perhaps not entirely accurate. Even if the federal government gets rid of 19,000 employees as planned, there will still be tens of thousands more bureaucrats on the payroll than when the Harper Tories took office, and they’ll be spending near-record amounts. Ontario’s government is battling merely to temporarily halt the exponential growth it sponsored over its first eight years. None of the federal or provincial governments are contemplating reductions in the same league as those imposed by the Chretien Liberals in the 1990s.

The problem seems to be more a matter of mind set. This morning’s headline announced that Research in Motion Ltd., until recently the darling of Canadian technology, would cut another 5,000 jobs as it tries to staunch losses and save $1 billion in costs. That’s on top of 2,000 cuts previously announced. Together they add up to more than a third the total contemplated for Ottawa’s civil servants. RIM employs about 16,500 people, compared to 282,000 by Ottawa, so the bloodshed at the Waterloo Ont. firm is far more serious than anything undertaken by a Canadian government.

No one at RIM is accusing the company of picking on them. So far there are no reports of employees wearing “RIM hates me” buttons. There are no doubt many employees disgusted that the company managed to so badly bungle the elite position it enjoyed just a few years ago, and angry at corporate decisions that have so harshly impacted on employees who worked their hearts out on its behalf. It’s not fair in any sense of the word, but it’s reality, and RIM is just one of many private sector companies forced to struggle for its life since the world economy fell off a cliff in 2008.

The difference is that public employees have little experience with such harsh realities and are accustomed to being shielded. Now that the protective barrier is weakening somewhat, they feel they’ve been treated unjustly. The fact is they’re simply being exposed to some of the pressures and risks that are part of everyday life for most Canadian workers. Odds are it won’t last long: one day the economy will be strong again, and the easy life of safe government jobs and big pensions will return. Until then, it’s almost as if government workers were just like everyone else.

There seems to be something about membership in an organized labour union that makes people sick.

Ontario’s government is currently confronting its teachers over a proposed wage freeze, and its desire to chop the 20 sick days teachers receive each year (Teacher years, of course, being just 10 months long). Toronto’s city government mounted a similar effort two summers ago, when a protracted strike resulted from the city’s claim that workers didn’t need the 18 sick days they were accorded (and which, like some teachers, they were allowed to save up for a pre-retirement cash-out.)

Now the federal government has learned that “union disease” has taken hold within the federal bureaucracy and is spreading alarmingly. The CBC reports that, according to a confidential government document in its possession, “federal workers have been booking off sick in record numbers, costing Canadian taxpayers more than $1 billion a year in lost wages alone.”

Related

It says the Treasury Board report indicates public employees take an average of 18 days off a year, or close to four weeks off the job.

“That is about 2½ times the average rate of absenteeism in Canadian private industry, and almost twice the level of sick leave and disability claims in the rest of the public sector,” it says. It’s also more than workers at Ford or General Motors, even though federal employees aren’t generally required to do that much heavy lifting, other than supporting ministers’ egos.

Obviously, the problem has something to do with union membership. There must be some kind of virus that develops from signing documents that enable union leaders to fight with employers over how much money you make, what time you turn up for work, how often and for how long you may repair to the washroom, and which procedures you have to follow when seeking to register a complaint. In union environments, you can’t complain by just walking over to the boss’s office and saying, “Uh, boss, can I have a word?” That would undermine the ability of the union to launch lengthy, expensive grievance procedures, ruining the whole fun of the thing.

People outside the protective embrace of Canadian unions don’t take nearly as much time off. Perhaps because, if they did, they wouldn’t get paid? No, that can’t be it. People go to work out of the sheer joy of contributing, which is one reason the NDP has long argued for higher taxes. When you just flat out love your job, you don’t mind working for peanuts (or even for Thomas Mulcair, for that matter). People who like their job welcome higher taxes. Sometimes they just send the money in unasked, on the spur of the moment.

Say now, hold on. You don’t suppose the high absenteeism indicates that bureaucrats don’t especially like their jobs, do you? How could they not? Federal unions have long ensured high wages, decent work environments and generous benefits. That’s why unions exist, after all. Just last year the federal government forked over $1.2-billion in voluntary severance payments to 91,613 public servants who are either still working or decided to quit on their own. (And why wouldn’t you, with that kind of money?) Who else gets a perk like that?

If civil servants remain unhappy despite all this, either they’ve failed to appreciate how well off they are, or jobs which entail strictly regulated hours and pay scales aren’t all they’re cracked up to be when it comes to career enjoyment.

Some skeptics maintain the bureaucrats are depressed, due to the government’s downsizing program. This could hold some merit: notices have been going out for weeks warning that your friend at the next desk may not be around much longer. Or, worse YOU may not be around much longer. That kind of stuff can get you down. But considering the size of the civil service – 282,000 employees last year – the extent of the layoffs is fairly moderate. Even if all 19,000 layoffs take effect as suggested in the budget, the federal workforce would still be 13,000 people bigger than it was in 2007, according to the annual reports from the clerk of the privy council. That’s serious, but not nearly as bad as faced in many other industries across the country, few of which come with the perks bureaucrats get even as they’re hurried towards the door.

No, I’m convinced there’s some kind of labour union pandemic that’s wiping out the joy people would normally get from a job working for the government. Either that or it’s the Ottawa winter, when people are forced by sheer boredom to watch the Ottawa Senators. That would sure make me take a few days off.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-federal-bureaucrats-laid-low-by-union-disease/feed0stdNazem Kadri of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates 3-1 win against the New Jersey Devils during game action at the Air Canada Centre November 18, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Stephen Taylor: Taking the air out of high-flying bureaucratshttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/stephen-taylor-taking-the-air-out-of-high-flying-bureaucrats
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/stephen-taylor-taking-the-air-out-of-high-flying-bureaucrats#commentsTue, 03 Jan 2012 17:20:21 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=62697

Senior bureaucrats are flying around the world on lavish multi-destination trips on the taxpayer dime, all under the guise of “leadership training” and seeing how bureaucrats handle their jobs in other countries.

The Conservative government has stated that the next budget will be an austere one, as Canada’s federal deficit looms large. The Prime Minister has instated a “Deficit Reduction Action Plan,” requiring that all ministries find ways to reduce spending.

One area that they should look into is the “Advanced Leadership Program” run by the Canada School of Public Service. According to the program’s website, “Participants will be exposed to a highly experiential and strategic program that aims to build a cadre of more effective senior leaders across the public service, that creates a stronger community of senior leaders to better enable teamwork based on trust, that expands the talent pool of future senior leaders and aligns senior leaders’ values and their connection to the strategic business priorities of the public service.” It is comprised of “three main blocks of 2 – 3 weeks each, as well as two-day integrated sessions, delivered over a period of twelve months.”

The Canada School of Public Service, which runs the Advanced Leadership Program, has an annual budget of $145-million.

In 2009, the program sent participants to 35 different cities around the world, with all participants visiting India, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Washington, D.C. and Yellowknife.

For a government that is claiming that cuts are urgently needed, it’s surprising to see how much this program spends on only a handful of public servants.

The program is comprised of three blocks, which encompasses three different regions. One block encompasses Asia, Africa, Europe or the Middle East, the second covers the U.S. and the Americas and the third sends people across Canada. Generally, the first two blocks cost between $10,000 to $20,000 each, while the third block came in around $10,000.

Why is the government spending all of this money for senior bureaucrats to go to far-off places? It’s website states that,

An important objective of the program is to expand participants’ frame of reference by developing their capacity to integrate regional, North American, and global perspectives in dealing with public service challenges. Study tours were organized to expose participants to these perspectives.

Many senior bureaucrats go through the program, but here’s a sample:

Richard Wex, the Assistant Deputy Minister for policing, law enforcement and the interoperability branch: From January 16th, through February 5th of this year, Mr. Wex traveled from Canada, to the U.S. and Brazil at a cost of $21,999.23. From April 30th to May 14th, he hopped between Belgium, Norway and India. at a cost of $21,745.32.

Also travelling this past year was Marie Lemay, the CEO of the National Capital Commission. The taxpayer spent $21,745.86 in January and February, taking her to Calgary, Chicago, Washington, Rio and Brasilia, and another $23,826.87 shuttling her from Brussells, Oslo, Frankfurt, Chennai and New Dehli in May

Also consider Anil Arora, the Assistant Chief Statistician at Statistics Canada. In less than one year, Arora took three trips with the Advanced Leadership Program. In November 2008, he travelled to Montreal, Japan, China, the UAE and India for $24,548.58. In January 2009, he travelled to Sacramento, San Francisco, Washington, Port au Prince and Mexico for $17,081.60. And then, in April and May of 2009, he travelled to Yellowknife, Regina, Saskatoon, Sydney and Halifax for $7,891.92

Other high-flying bureaucrats in the Advanced Leadership Program include:

Many Canadians will be shocked to hear that senior public servants are traveling around the world, each one costing us more money than the mean Canadian income. The government is looking to cut-back on departmental expenses in its strategic and operational review, and should cut the Advanced Leadership Program.

Re: The German Right Moves To The Centre, Oct. 19.
The results of this new study are utterly terrifying. That nearly half of the Germans polled agree that the country needs policies that embody volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) is especially shocking, as this ideology was used to justify the horrific action taken against those deemed “unpure” during Hitler’s reign — Jews and homosexuals, among others.
That nearly 40% of Germans generally agree that Jews use “sinister tricks” to achieve what they want more often than others, and nearly 60% agree that religious freedom should be limited considerably for Muslims is also troubling. We too often alienate groups based on generalizations. Are there not Christians who use “sinister tricks?” Is Christianity exempt from religious extremists? I think not.
If this is the sort of thinking we have returned to, then the recent tragic deaths of five gay teens should come as no surprise. Nor should the banning of burkas in France or the protesting of plans to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. It’s so easy to say “never again” and forget, but exclusionary mindsets and behaviour have dire consequences. I hope for humanity’s sake that we recognize this before it is, again, too late. Jessica Barrett, Mississauga, Ont.

That loud creaking noise these nights will no doubt be Pierre Elliott Trudeau turning over in his grave after Angela Merkel’s unequivocal denunciation of the multiculturalism experiment in Germany. In calling a spade a spade, Merkel is only one of many European leaders who have grown tired of the immigrant ghettos growing in their countries and the creation of virtual police “no-go” zones around some major cities. If only somebody of her stature had taken Trudeau aside many years ago and had told him that immigrants, who have no intention of integrating or learning the country’s language, are inevitably going to create conflict and chaos down the road. One can only hope and pray that certain politicians in Canada will now have the guts to speak out on this issue. Thank you Ms. Merkel for having had such courage. Andy Neimers, Digby Neck, N.S.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s comments regarding multiculturalism hit a note with me. If Canada were to take a serious look at its own attempts with multiculturalism, it would also see that it is not working. We have too many people who identify with their homeland, not Canada. We have immigrants who come to this country and choose to live in ethnic enclaves, not attempting to learn the official languages of this country, either because they don’t understand Canada, or don’t care.
One only has to look at the mass evacuation of Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanon War, when thousands upon thousands of so-called Canadians demanded that they be evacuated from the war zone. When you investigate who these people were you find out that they use Canada for its passport privileges and its free medical services.
Canada, too, must take a hard look at our multicultural experiment. It isn’t working here, either. Bryan Olson, Lindsay, Ont.

Islands are clearly Japanese territory

Re: U.S., Vietnam Forge New Rapprochement, Peter Goodspeed, Oct. 13.
We would like to set the record straight concerning some information contained within a map that accompanied Mr. Goodspeed’s article.
Through thorough surveys, dating back to 1885, it was confirmed that the Senkaku Islands had been uninhabited and showed no trace of having been under the control of China. Based on this, the government of Japan made a cabinet decision on Jan. 14, 1895 to erect a marker on the islands to formally incorporate them into the territory of Japan.
Since then, the Senkaku Islands have continuously remained as an integral part of the Nansei Shoto Islands, and Japanese territory. These islands were neither part of Taiwan nor part of the Pescadores Islands which were ceded to Japan from the Qing Dynasty of China in accordance with Article II of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which came into effect in May of 1895.
Accordingly, the Senkaku Islands are not included in the territory which Japan renounced under Article II of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The Senkaku Islands have been placed under the administration of the United States of America as part of the Nansei Shoto Islands, in accordance with Article III of the said treaty, and are included in the area, the administrative rights over which were reverted to Japan in accordance with the Agreement Between Japan and the United States of America Concerning the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands signed on June 17, 1971. The facts outlined herein clearly indicate the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory.
The fact that China expressed no objection to the status of the islands being under the administration of the United States under Article III of the San Francisco Peace Treaty clearly indicates that China did not consider the Senkaku Islands as part of Taiwan. It was not until the latter half of 1970, thanks to petroleum resources on the continental shelf of the East China Sea, that the government of China and Taiwan authorities began to raise questions regarding the Senkaku Islands.
Furthermore, none of the points raised by the Government of China as “historic, geographic or geological” evidence provide valid grounds, in light of international law, to support China’s arguments regarding the Senkaku Islands. Yoichi Fujiwara, Embassy of Japan, Ottawa.

Glad to be a rabbi here at home

Re: Jewish Imports: Why So Many Of Canada’s Rabbis Are From The United States, Oct. 16.
Of the 31 graduates in the 2009 Rabbinical School class of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), two were Canadians – us. Upon ordination, we had multiple work opportunities in the United States, but opted instead for home. Like many job seekers, our choices were informed by work culture, mentoring opportunities and proximity to family and friends. Certainly, the more traditional nature of Canadian Conservative Jewry was a draw as was the vibrancy of Jewish and secular life in Toronto (not to mention the soft recruiting during summer fellowships for Canadian seminarians).
Our return to Canada was largely a function of timing. There are few openings for pulpit rabbis within one’s own denomination at any given time and new graduates have a small window during which to find gainful employment. No one we have spoken with can remember the last time there were two entry-level pulpit positions open in Toronto at the same time. Though our placement was predicated on good luck, our insider knowledge has been immensely helpful as we serve our congregations and communities. We are forever thankful for the superior Jewish education and experiences received in Canada. Rabbi Adam Cutler, Beth Tzedec Congregation, Rabbi Jarrod Grover, Beth Tikvah Synagogue, Toronto.

Thanks for the donation

Re: Why Do Some Chiefs Oppose Accountability, letter to the editor, Oct. 12.
Senator Brazeau had noted the contributions to the Liberal Party of Canada, disclosed in Elections Canada data, from what he describes as Aboriginal contributors. He implies that the Liberal party wouldn’t want to stem such a tide of contributions.
The Senator may suffer from a form of selective amnesia quite common to members of his Conservative caucus. He forgets that amendments to the Canada Elections Act, enacted by the Liberal government of prime minister Chrétien in 2003, banned donations to all political parties from any source other than personal donations.
The only Aboriginal contributors who may now make political donations to federal parties or candidates are individual contributors. To my knowledge, neither Elections Canada, nor the Liberal party, keep data on the ethnic origin of individual political donors.
In any case, I imagine that the motives of individual Aboriginal political donors, or those of Aboriginal organizations under the old rules, are, and were, no different from those of any other donor, including Senator Brazeau himself. The same Elections Canada databases which he so diligently searched, reveal that the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples donated politically while the Senator was its president, while Mr. Brazeau has personally contributed both to the Liberal party (of which he was formerly a member), and to the Harper Conservatives after he was appointed to the Senate by Stephen Harper in 2008.
For the sake of full disclosure, Patrick Brazeau also made a contribution to my federal Liberal by-election nomination campaign in 2005, for which I thank him. Todd Russell, MP, Labrador.

Bureaucrats are the same all over

Re: Paralysis Of The State, David Brooks, Oct. 19.
Although this editorial is aimed at the political and economic malaise in the United States, it is just as applicable to Canada. I was the manager of an insurance branch in Ottawa in the 1960s and I found it impossible to compete with the civil service for salary or benefits or volume of work. Later in the ’80s I was a partner in a small to medium sized business in London, Ont. and found that nothing had changed in this respect. It had gotten worse and I’m sure it’s only gotten worse still since then.
It used to be that one could accept a lower wage in the civil service in exchange for iron-clad job security. The way things are now, why would anyone want to work in the private sector? Dennis O’Connor, London, Ont.

Islam is being judged too harshly

Re: ‘If Islam Teaches Peace, Its Students Are Flunking,’ letters of the day, Oct. 19.
The people who responded to the letter written by Tahira Saliha are clearly unable to accept Islam being peaceful. To these people I would ask, does the Second World War, the world war before that, Vietnam, or any of a thousand other wars throughout history, prove that Christianity is a violent faith? Does Israel’s wars against its Arab neighbours and the Palestinians prove that Jews are not peaceful?
Just because a member of a religious faith commits a crime does not mean that every member of that faith is a criminal, or would condone such an act (The Catholic sex abuse scandal is a timely example). I would have hoped for more respect for all religions and less haste to blame an entire faith for the sins of its members. Sajid Manzar, Brampton, Ont.

Military must learn from Williams

Re: Ongoing coverage of the Russell Williams sentencing.
As serial killers go, Russell Williams was not just scraping by, he was a senior ranking officer in the Armed Forces and was base commander of CFB Trenton at the time of his arrest.
There is much to be learnt here, not just for psychiatrists, profilers and criminologists. The Canadian Forces can use the data to ensure the checks and balances are there, not just in recruiting, but also assessment that is supposed to happen over the span of a member’s career.
So as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) moves to assure Canadians by stripping Williams of his rank and throwing him out of the military as a dishonoured civilian, the CDS must also take some level of responsibility for the overall failing. Someone must have seen signs. But did they know what they meant? William Perry, Victoria.

I can see the importance of presenting valid factual information to the readers. Detailing the case which has caused so much trauma to many families is important for a media outlet such as yours. But what is the importance of including pictures of Colonel Williams in some of his victims’ underwear? It adds nothing to the article. It is an embarrassing display of shock journalism. I don’t buy tabloids and don’t expect this newspaper to act like one. Richard Goudie, Barrie, Ont.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-thanks-to-angela-merkel-trudeau-must-be-spinning-in-his-grave/feed0stdA media at war with itself, happy times for the bureaucrats and how Calgary lost its coolhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/a-media-at-war-with-itself-happy-times-for-the-bureaucrats-and-how-calgary-lost-its-cool
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/a-media-at-war-with-itself-happy-times-for-the-bureaucrats-and-how-calgary-lost-its-cool#commentsSun, 17 Oct 2010 13:00:56 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=15023

Every weekday, members of the National Post editorial board and other contributors offer their commentary and analysis of the top breaking news and critical issues of the day. Find here some of the best opinions recorded at Fullcomment.com this week.

The morning host for a Toronto sports radio station was railing against the mainstream media this week, which is strange. The Fan 590 is owned by Rogers Broadcasting. Rogers not only owns radio stations but a cable business, a cellphone empire, an internet operation, a home phone division, TV stations, and recently bought a fibre optics network for $425 million. It owns a baseball team and the stadium it plays in. It rents videos and publishes magazines. It has a TV sports channel as well as its radio channel. It carries NHL hockey games. Profits last year were approximately a hundred bazillion dollars. It doesn’t get more mainstream than that.

But the Fan is not alone. Sarah Palin loves to vilify what she calls “the lamestream media”, ignoring the fact that she, like half the Republican party these days, works for Fox TV, which is as mainstream in the U.S. as Rogers is in Canada. The idea seems to be that anyone who disagrees with the speaker — whether a radio jock or failed vice-presidential candidate — is “mainstream”, and that’s bad. Because we all want to be rebels, thinking outside the box, challenging conventional wisdom.

Except, we also want to be as conventional as possible. If everyone else is buying the latest Apple gadget, we want it too. If everyone else has their cellphone stuck to their ear in Starbucks (where we go because that’s where everyone else goes), we whip out our cellphone too. The reason we need those gadgets is so we can stay up to date, and not get caught missing whatever is current and stylish. Because it would be embarrassing to be different. Maybe that’s why we need the mainstream media. So we can keep up on fads, and ensure we’re properly individualistic, just like everyone else.— Kelly McParland

So who benefited most from Ottawa’s billions in stimulus spending over the past two years? Construction workers? Undoubtedly. And autoworkers? Indisputably. Yet beyond these two sectors, there is little chance the billions poured down the drain had much impact on other sectors, especially small businesses.

Indeed, the biggest winners likely have been public-sector workers, not surprisingly. In just the last year, public service employment rose across the country by 3.4%, half or more of the increase the result of jobs created to hand out stimulus cash. So while there is scant evidence that all the billions spent stimulated many private-sector jobs – the original purpose of the money – there is plenty of evidence it created lots of new jobs in government overseeing the non-jobs being created in the public sector. Governments aren’t much good at creating employment, except for more government workers.— Lorne Gunter

Before it was known that Canada would lose the vote for a UN seat, the head of the Canadian Arab Federation was circulating an article written by Murray Dobbin, that criticizes Canadian foreign policy for being friendly with U.S.-allied Colombia, too close to Israel, anti-environmentalist, guilty of imperialism in Haiti, and the like.

All these topics are of course near and dear to the CAF’s heart, and Dobbin’s anti-Canadian views are music to their ears. Standing up for our ally in the Middle East, trade with a Colombian government making huge strides in its struggle against the narco-terrorist FARC insurgency, rescuing desperate Haitians and not signing away our economy to appease the greenies cannot be tolerated. How dare we be so right-wing and, like, totally American. Ugh. How can the UN even look at us? Please, guys, don’t vote for us. Pro-Israel, pro-free-trade Westerners have no place in the United Nations until they grovel and apologize for every sin, real or imagined, ever committed by a white guy anywhere.— Matt Gurney

Maxine Bernier wants Ottawa out of the province’s jurisdiction, a return to our Constitutionally mandated separation of powers and responsibilities. Not all of the details are there, but he proposes that Ottawa stop funding programs in provincial jurisdiction and give them the tax room to provide the services themselves. The big question is how or why Bernier is being allowed to do this? Can you see any other Conservative MP being allowed to speak his mind on such a controversial subject, especially if his opinions don’t match the official PMO lines? I think most would agree that PMO does not normally allow loose cannons out there on the public speaking circuit.

Is Bernier being used then to send up trial balloons? That is always a possibility and of course he offers hope to the right wing of the party that their views are being heard and articulated in public. In that sense he serves a purpose for the PMO, which of course will always say he is representing his own views and not speaking on behalf of the government. Then again, wasn’t Garry Breitkreuz doing that as well when he got into so much trouble for his views on the long gun registry?— Keith Beardsley

Calgary used to be cool. They were the conservative rebel without a cause. They welcomed George Bush and Sarah Palin with open arms and could always be counted on for a good pro-Iraq war rally. Ann Coulter called you “the good Canadians”. The man who embodied this Calgary image was Ralph Klein. He was mayor in the 80s. The rest of the country laughed at Ralph, but they didn’t care.

This all led to a good-natured rivalry with Toronto. In 2004, Scott Reid famously said “Alberta can blow me” during the election campaign. A decade earlier, Calgarians pasted “Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark” bumper stickers on your trucks. That was just the sort of relationship Calgary and Toronto have always had. And you know what? The relationship worked. Calgarians hated the Toronto elites for their self-righteousness and their blind devotion to the Liberal Party, while the self righteous Toronto elites shook their heads and wondered what was wrong with those backwater Calgarians who would elect a donkey if you slapped a Tory logo on its behind.— Dan Arnold

Back at the end of the Cold War someone decided that we didn’t need to purchase a lot of smart bombs as most likely we would never have to bomb someone. Surprise, we needed this type of bomb in the former Yugoslavia and had to run to our allies for more when our limited supply was exhausted. It was this reasoning that kept our forces flying Sea Kings that were twice the age of their pilots. Remember Chretien saying he wouldn’t lose one second of sleep when cancelling the order for their replacement? That was a great political line, but not so great if you had to fly one or if you were the spouse of a pilot. Today, seventeen years later we are still waiting for their replacements to arrive.

It’s the same mentality that said the Cold War was over so why keep tanks around and why upgrade our existing Leopard tanks, as we would never fight a land war. That led to the present government being forced to go to the Germans and Dutch to rent and buy modern Leopards for guess what … fighting a land war in Afghanistan.— Keith Beardsley

Sometimes we spend so much time making fun of our own politicians that we forget that other countries have really, really stupid public officials, too. I’m looking at you, Chilean health minister.

Chile was overjoyed recently to realize that 33 men considered lost in a mining disaster are, in fact, alive and (relatively) well inside an emergency shelter deep underground. Equipment has been able to open up a tiny shaft roughly 2,500 feet long and barely a fist-width’s wide, linking the shelter to the ground. Through this tiny shaft, rescuers on the surface were able to establish communication with the men trapped inside, and plans are in progress to begin sending clean water, oxygen and food down to the men, who have been surviving on a starvation diet of tuna and soup. The men recently received protein bars. It is hoped that they will receive a hard-boiled egg each.

So was it really necessary for the country’s Minister of Health to state publicly that the men need to stay slim in order to escape through the narrow shaft? Umm … Minister? These men are only capable of eating what food you guys send to them. Unless you’re planning to stuff a turkey and gravy down that chute they’ll probably have little trouble keeping off the pounds.

Officials are otherwise being careful to look after the miners’ mental health by sending down playing cards, hooking up a phone line so they can talk to their families, studying whether they can pipe down movies … and by forbidding anyone from telling them the government expects it will take four months to free them. That sort of information is verboten. But reminding men who made a two-day supply of food last two weeks that they should be careful about their weight seems a bit redundant.

It’s nice to know that bureaucrats the world over have the same bizarre way of looking at things. Here’s hoping those poor men trapped below the surface have smarter rescuers than they do civil servants.

National Post

mgurney@nationalpost.com

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